If you’ve ever been friends with a techie or even tried calling them during work hours, you’d know the importance of ‘the call.’ Cue music from Hitchcock’s Psycho , “Cease, desist, do not disturb, I am on a call!” Calls, technically ‘client calls,’ you quickly learn, are the highlight (or bane) of life as a techie.
“You cannot cancel on a client call,” says Prashanti P.S., an operations manager with an IT firm in Technopark. “Even if you are on holiday or travelling, if a client call is scheduled for the day, you have to take it. No excuses!” she adds.
Prasanthi P.S.
So that explains why that guy on the late night train the other day, was on the phone, his laptop open in front of him, modem wired up, talking endlessly in heavily accented English about this ‘vertical’ and those ‘indices’ to nameless others, among them, someone called Ms. Steffy.
Vidhula Vijayan
“Every team within a company has to take client calls, though not everyone in the team would have to. The timing of the calls depend on the project, location and client. For example, my present client does not work on Fridays. So there will be no calls during that day. If you have multiple clients, the more number of calls you will have to take,” explains Vidhula Vijayan, a senior tester.
The amount of time you spend on calls depends on your designation. “Everyone who is in the mid to high level in IT firms usually has to attend to calls for several hours a day, while freshers rarely have to,” adds Hari Krishnan M., a project lead.
Hrai Krishnan M.
For many techies, calls take up most of their days. Sukesh Chandran cheerfully tells us that he spends at least half his work day – and half of his free time as well, by the sound of it – on client calls. “On any given work day, I would have client calls, calls with my entire team that can go up to two hours each and then another two to three hours discussing issues with the project manager. I also have to attend calls with individual members of the team throughout the day,” he explains.
In ITeS firms a.k.a. BPOs, calls are the be all and end all of work life. Employees either take calls for technical support or customer support and each person’s performance is judged on how well they take the calls.
Sukesh Chandran
In the IT field, it’s different. “In IT firms calls are part of your job but not all that there is. You have to attend customer support calls and status updates calls for a particular project. If your team is spread across various locations, a call provides a platform for all of them to interact together with the client and a call comes in handy also when you want to communicate within the team as well,” explains Hari, adding that lately the frequency of calls has increased. “Most IT firms these days follow what’s called ‘agile methodology’ of working on a project, which essentially means that a project is divided into various levels (scrum cycle is the technical term) that necessitate periodic progress checks and interactions with all stakeholders,” he explains.
And calls are not without their challenges. “Often the accents of people at the other end are difficult to comprehend. More perplexing is the pace with which each person talks. For example, within the U.S. itself, you might have to interact with people with a typical American twang, people who speak with an African brogue, a Latin accent...,” says Vidhula. Finding the right time to bring everyone together on board is another.
“In my case, I’m in Technopark, my project manager is in Germany and most of my clients are in Japan. The locations and resultant time difference itself ensure that you get calls at all hours of the day,” says Sukesh.
Call etiquette
When on a call....
Be clear, sound confidant and be transparent
Always be polite, firm and never raise your voice
There should be no background noise. Heavy breathing is an absolute no.
If you don’t know the answer to a question posed by the client, admit it
Stick to the agenda at hand
